Defenders of the park

The array of Adirondack environmental advocates requires a program for outsiders to keep straight.

A dozen major organizations will spend more than $15 million this year—most collected from contributors or members—to help protect ecosystems, waterways, wildlife and recreation from environmental threats.

They also advocate with state authorities responsible for the 5.8-million-acre Adirondack Park, almost half of it constitutionally protected state-owned forest preserve.

Conservation advocates championed creation of the park and the preserve, and convinced lawmakers and governors to double the size of both over the next century.

Some groups formed more recently, citing gaps they say need addressing. The latest, still filing some of the required paperwork for nonprofit status, is Adirondack Wilderness Advocates, established two years ago by three outdoorsmen, saying someone needed to speak for designating the new Boreas Ponds state acquisition as true wilderness for primitive recreation.

The various groups’ other job is to lobby the New York agencies—the Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Park Agency—that oversee the park and regulate what people can do in it. Ditto the state’s Lake George Park Commission, responsible for the 32-mile-long waterway that’s the first Adirondack experience for many visitors and draws roughly 10 million of them annually.

At least three separate organizations work on Lake George’s issues. Many other smaller associations, consisting largely of landowners, are focused on the welfare of other lakes, rivers and watersheds.

So what sets them all apart?

Those three and eight others with a parkwide purview told the they have somewhat unique missions, features and